"FOR ME, THE KITCHEN IS AN ART STUDIO, AND THE CHEFS ARE ALL ARTISTS PRODUCING WORKS OF ART" Ertan Korkmaz, Production Manager of Cakes&Bakes brand. Korkmaz, whose passion for pastry has not even momentarily waned since 1984, prefers to use seasonal and regional products in his cuisine. Also he says the best kitchen is a mother's kitchen and the best cooks are mothers. Cakes&Bakes offers bread, sandwiches, baked products, cakes, Turkish delight, and hot and cold meals prepared in a 23.000 meter square kitchen. The products of the brand, which works with 130 domestic and foreign companies, are offered to customers at 3,000 selling points. Production Chef Ertan Korkmaz, having 2,500 active recipes, emphasizes the great importance they give to quality and hygiene and points out that they hold the responsibility of the whole process from the production process until the food is presented at table. You work as a production manager for the BTA’s Cakes&Bakes brand. How did your interest in cookery and pastry emerge? After boarding school examinations I was entitled to study in a teaching department but I did not want to be a teacher. I attended Tourism-Hospitality school and chose the Cuisine department there. When I was an intern in Etap Marmara, I met a French pastry chef and I was very impressed. Therefore I decided to be a pastry cook. This job was a passion for me. Shortly afterwards it became an occupational passion. I stepped up quite rapidly. Since I could speak English, I went abroad with 2-3 of my chefs and became a young chef when I was 23. I worked in eight different hotels. And I have been working as a production chef at Cakes&Bakes. What are the characteristics of Turkey in baked products and pastry and what kind of changes are experienced in these fields? The understanding of desserts and pastry in Turkey is a little different from foreign countries. When you say dessert in foreign countries, you are referring to products with less sugar and less diversity. They have mainly cakes and chocolates. In Turkey, on the other hand, we have a variety of types of dessert, such as Turkish delight, halva, candies, and baklava. In foreign countries, baked products are mainly consumed at breakfast. In Turkey we generally prefer salty food, such as poğaça with cheese or açma with olives. The dessert culture in Turkey is neither entirely oriental nor western. We neither eat heavy and fatty foods like Arabic people nor do we consume light and low sugar products. At Cakes&Bakes, you provide baked products and pastry services to a great number of cafes and fast-food chains in Turkey. What do you care about most in the making of these foods? The top priority for our company in this matter is quality and hygiene. At Cakes&Bakes, we received an A+ in accordance with British retailing Consortium (BRC) standards. Also we are among the few companies in Turkey to have that standard. For us, choosing the raw materials is very important. We work with high quality, healthy and recognized brands. We hold the responsibility of the whole process starting from the production to the point where the food we make in our kitchen reaches the customer, and even until it reaches the dining table. Therefore, we are constantly trying to increase our standards. Can you talk about your personal area of expertise in pastry and your specific characteristics? What I do best are chocolates and cakes. Actually, for me, chocolate is desire, will, everything... I make tiramisu a lot. When making tiramisu, I use mascarpone and I’m very careful about the quality of the cheese. For me, the kitchen is an art studio; the cooks are artists; and we make works of art... What I consider most important in kitchen is that the materials I use should be seasonal and regional. Everything consumed in its season and which is local is always nice. According to your opinion, to what extent should a good pastry cook include technical rules and creativity? In your opinion, is pastry just an endeavor for creating a good delight or does it involve artistic, aesthetic, and beauty oriented concerns? A good pastry cook, before anything else, must be missionary and visionary. Other than this, they must be innovating, work and solution oriented, creative and skilled. A good pastry cook, on one hand must be able to meet the his/her customers’ expectations and on the other hand must be a team player, train and motivate the team members. When we consider the working conditions at Cakes&Bakes, we don’t have the opportunity to include something of our own since we work along with customers and act according to their desires and comments. From the weighing out to oven, almost everything is predefined. If I consider it from a personal perspective, I think I am always in search of new tastes. I travel different places and discover the local tastes. People’s concepts of delight vary regionally. For every person, their mother’s kitchen, where they had their first taste of food, is the best kitchen and the best cooks are their mothers. And their tastes are shaped by the habits of that locality. These are what I take into consideration. INGREDIENTS Savoiardi (sponge fingers) For tiramisu sauce: 480g egg yolk 200g granulated sugar 1000g mascarpone, if not available, labne cheese For coffee syrup: 250g granulated sugar 250g water 37.5g instant coffee HOW TO COOK For the tiramisu sauce, whisk the egg yolk and granulated sugar in a processor until the mixture reaches a creamy stiffness. Gradually fold the labne cheese into the granulated sugar mixture. For the coffee syrup, pour the granulated sugar and water into a pot. Boil the mixture on the stove. Leave boiled syrup to cool. Add coffee to the syrup and mix until it has dissolved. Split the Savoıardı (sponge fingers) bought from the grocery into two parts evenly according to the size of the pot. Dip into the coffee syrup to soften. Place the syruped sponge fingers into the pot you will use. Put the tiramisu mixture into a sauce piping bag and squeeze over the sponges. After the mixture is set, pour over the rest of the coffee syrup and serve.